2 Samuel 14:25,26; 2 Samuel 15:1-6; 2 Samuel 18:9-11,14,15,17,18
In all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. And when he polled his head, (for it was at every year’s end that he polled it: because the hair was heavy on him, therefore he polled it:) he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels after the king’s weight.
And Absalom rode upon a mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth; and the mule that was under him went away. And a certain man saw it, and told Joab, and said, Behold, I saw Absalom hanged in an oak. And Joab said unto the man that told him, And, behold, thou sawest him, and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle…Then said Joab, I may not tarry thus with thee. And he took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak. And ten young men that bare Joab’s armour compassed about and smote Absalom, and slew him…And they took Absalom, and cast him into a great pit in the wood, and laid a very great heap of stones upon him.
Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in the king’s dale: for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance: and he called the pillar after his own name: and it is called unto this day, Absalom’s place.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Absalom being desirous to perpetuate his memory, had erected a pillar, which, no doubt, he designed as a mausoleum, and which we may reasonably conclude was equally magnificent with the ambition of him who reared it. But see how short-sighted are mortals! This same Absalom, so far from being buried in this proud monument which he had erected, was killed and buried like a traitor, thrown into a pit, and a great heap of stones laid upon him. The sacred writer mentions this particular, not only to show the vanity of Absalom, but, we may reasonably conclude, to show the vanity of human life in general.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Absalom committed a grievous offence against his father king David, for he sought to rob him of his scepter and wrest the kingdom from his hands, 2 Samuel 15:7-14…The methods he followed thoroughly revealed what a godless and unscrupulous scoundrel he was; see 2 Samuel 15:1-6, and 2 Samuel 16:20 to 2 Samuel 17:4.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Amidst all the beauty of Absalom’s person, we hear nothing of the graces of his mind! Alas! what are all outward attractions but vanity.
THOMAS COKE: It is very evident from the peculiar manner in which it is mentioned in the sacred text, that there must have been something extremely singular, even at that time, in this large quantity of Absalom’s hair.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Absalom had a very fine head of hair; whether it was the length, or colour, or extraordinary softness of it, something there was which made it very valuable and very much an ornament to him. This notice is taken of his hair, not as the hair of a Nazarite, Numbers 6:1-5—Absalom was far from that strictness—but as the hair of a beau. Absalom let it grow till it was a burden to him, and was heavy on him—nor would he cut it as long as ever he could bear it.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): It grew so very thick and long in one year’s time, that he was obliged to cut it; and what might add to the weight of it, was its being oiled and powdered; and, as some say, with the dust of gold, to make it look yellow and glistering.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): An abundance of oil and ointments were used by the ancients in dressing their heads; as is evident, not only from many places in the Greek and Roman writers, but also from several places in the sacred writings; see Psalm 23:5, Ecclesiastes 9:8, Matthew 6:17. Josephus, the Jewish historian, also informs us that the Jews not only used ointments, but that they put gold dust in their hair that it might flame in the sun.
MATTHEW HENRY: When he did cut it, for ostentation he had it weighed, that it might be seen how much it excelled other men’s.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Absalom had a pride in his hair.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Satan himself is described figuratively as being the most beautiful angel, Ezekiel 28:12-17, and his sin was pride, and wanting the throne of his Creator, that he might be God, and worshipped as God, Isaiah 14:12-14. And this was the Satanic character of Absalom’s vanity, and his rebellious sin was in seeking to gain the throne of his father king David. Does not the phrase “after the king’s weight,” suggest something more than merely a physical unit of measure? Absalom weighing his hair every year, perhaps spiritually symbolizes his own assessment of how much his efforts had advanced his plans to gain his father’s throne; and he gloried in the very thought of it.
THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): Those who cannot blush for sin too much resemble the beasts. There are some so far from this holy blushing that they are proud of their sins. They are proud of their long hair. These are the devil’s Nazarites. “Does not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man has long hair, it is a shame to him?” 1 Corinthians 11:14. It confounds the distinction of the sexes. Some glory in what is their shame: they look at sin as a piece of gallantry. The swearer thinks his speech is most graceful when it is interspersed with oaths. The drunkard considers it a glory that he can drink to excess.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Sodom rushed forward to that degree of licentiousness so as to be horrified by no enormity. God says that they began by pride, Ezekiel 16:49―and surely pride is the mother of all contempt of God.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In our modern day, Sodomites publically celebrate their sin with annual June parades, which they themselves call “Pride Parades.”
ADAM CLARKE: They glory in their iniquity. This is the highest pitch of ungodliness.
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): God often uses the lust a man hath been most indulgent unto to be his ruin, his hangman and executioner; so Absalom’s hair was to him.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The locks of his hair in which he gloried were caught in the low branches of an oak, and there he hung.
JOHN TRAPP: By that head he hanged, which had plotted treason against so good a father; and by the hair of his head twisted and wound about the boughs, God made his hair his halter: those tresses that had formerly hanged loosely on his shoulders—now he hangs by them. He had been accustomed to weigh his hair, and was proud to find it so heavy: now his hair bears the weight of his body, and makes his burden his torment.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Thus the thing of his pride was the instrument of his ruin.
ROBERT HAWKER: Every prelude to the death of Absalom is awful. His death is not after the common visitation of all men. He is first suspended, as it were, a spectacle between heaven and earth, unworthy of being in either.
A. W. PINK: Full opportunity was now afforded him to meditate upon his crimes and make his peace with God. But so far as the sacred record informs us, there was no contrition on his part. As God declared of Jezebel “I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not,” Revelation 2:21, so the life of Absalom was spared a few more hours, but no hint is given that he confessed his fearful sins to God. No, God had no place in his thoughts; as he had lived, so he died—defiant and impenitent. Absalom’s decease presents to us one of the darkest pictures of fallen human nature to be met with in the whole of God’s Word. A more melancholy and tragic spectacle can scarcely be imagined than Absalom dangling from the boughs of that tree.
C. H. SPURGEON: The proud may vaunt themselves of their beauty—their hairy scalp, like that of Absalom, may be their boast—but as the Lord made the hair of Absalom to be the instrument of his doom, so can He make the glory of man to be his ruin. “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall,” Proverbs 16:18. No man is out of the reach of God—and no nation, either!
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): Man’s ultimate problem is his pride.
THOMAS GOODWIN: Adam, our forefather, like rebellious Absalom, sought to dethrone God; that he should be as God was his temptation to sin against Him, Genesis 3:5.
